Been to the Emergency Room

I don't think you've fully experienced parenthood until you've made a middle-of-the-night visit to the ER with your child.

Less than four hours after I wrote Thursday's post, I woke up to hear Susanna sounding like Darth Vader over the baby monitor. When I went to check on her, I could hear her wheezing from the doorway of her room. The on-call nurse had told me if her wheezing got that loud that I needed to take her to the ER. So...in the next thirty minutes I did everything possible to avoid doing just that. I fed her some Pedialyte, ran the shower for 20 minutes, and kept her upright to help her breathe easier.

Why did I want to avoid the ER? No, it wasn't for financial reasons. Nor was it laziness. It's because the ER at Danville Regional Medical Center is legendary for being S L O W. I've heard of people waiting FIVE HOURS in the WAITING ROOM, giving up, and heading to another ER (there are about three others within an hour's drive). I didn't want to take her there unless it was absolutely necessary.

Alas, none of my measures worked, so I got dressed, bundled her up and off we went. Please note that I had the presence of mind to write down her Social Security # before we left. We arrived at 1:50 a.m. Thankfully, we were taken back to a room within 45 minutes, saw a doctor almost immediately, and within 30 minutes Susanna was receiving a breathing treatment. She was still wheezing a bunch after her first breathing treatment, so they gave her a second one. Thankfully, the second one did the trick...mostly. She wasn't breathing normally, but was showing enough improvement that the doctor said she didn't need to be hospitalized. He wrote a few prescriptions and told me to take her to the pediatrician that day (Friday). The diagnosis he gave us was: bronchiolitis (click on the link if you want more info).

Thankfully, she's doing much, much better. She's sleeping through the night again, is wheezing very rarely, is coughing less, and has regained her appetite. I'm keeping her home with me for the next few days until she's fully recovered. In the meantime, several times a day we "drug her up" with Amoxocillin (for the ear infection), Albuterol (for the wheezing), and a cough syrup.

I'm hoping and praying that she stays healthy for the next two months. I can't handle too many more weeks like this past week. Of course, I'll deal with it if it happens again. But I'm hoping that it doesn't.